Liberratta, (the doctor) is one of those sitting with me. She is twelve years old and nine months ago she lived in a nice house in Tanzania where her family owned some cows and grew bananas and coffee beans. One of her chores was to help milk the cows before school which she liked doing because it meant she could drink the fresh milk.Her family would sell some bananas and coffee beans and earn money, enough to make them completely self sufficient. They could afford to buy Liberatta and her brother school uniform and shoes; whilst they were not wealthy they were certainly happy and comfortable.
Liberratta loved school. She was in Year 5 and had lots of good friends. She went to school with some of her cousins but most of her friends were Tanzanian’s and they loved playing together after school. Whilst at home her family spoke Kinyarwanda at school she was learning in Kiswahili.
But then one day whilst Liberatta was at school her family got the news that they had to leave. Any person of Rwandan origin was being forced to leave Tanzania and return to Rwanda. They had little time to pack and leave; they were forced to abandon their cows, their small farm, and most of their personal belongings as they were herded on to whatever transport they could find to get them across the border and into the reception camp.
After a few days in a crowded camp Liberratta and her family were again on the move, this time crammed onto the back of a pickup truck, but they were on their way to their new home, and Liberratta was excited to see where they would be living. But when they arrived in Gituro, (North East Rwanda), Liberratta says, “I felt bad, there was nothing here, we slept on the ground like our cows in the open for four days, until my family could find enough wood to make a shelter.”
After a month the family had built a small mud and stick house, about the size of a four person tent but only about five foot high. Liberratta had a new chore, now she walked seven kilometers, at least once a day to collect water from a dam used by cows and goats. Often she had to wade in amongst the cattle to fill her container with the dirty brown water. Because they had used most of the wood in this barren savannah for their houses, (there was now 70 families) they had little firewood, what they could find was used to boil the maize the government gave them, they didn’t have enough to boil water to drink as well.
At last Liberratta was able to attend school, “but when I got there they put me down a year because they teach in English and French, and I couldn’t speak them – I felt sad”. Adding to this embarrassment of ‘demotion’ was the fact that Liberratta looked different too because her family couldn’t afford to buy her a school uniform or shoes. Despite these setbacks Liberratta tells me that school is good and she has made some new friends and she is happy.
When asked what the hardest thing about being back I Rwanda was, Liberrata and her friends said that they miss their own houses and their cows. Liberratta misses being able to drink as much fresh milk as she wants, and being able to eat until she’s not hungry. She misses having enough clothes, and she misses her shoes.
One of the hardest things about being back in Rwanda is that they don’t feel like they are home. In Tanzania they were happy, but they were often made to feel like they didn’t belong because they were Rwandese. Now, back in the country of their origin they feel like they don’t belong because they are returnees, “this is supposed to be our home”, says Liberratta’s mum, “but even here we are made to feel like we don’t belong.”So as they sit beneath the tree telling me their stories, they dream of a better day. They dream of a day when they can eat what they want, drink what they want and pay for it themselves. And, interestingly of all to me, almost unanimously they dream of being engaged in work that transforms other peoples lives (although there was one little boy, Caleb, who wants to buy a motorbike).
